Data centers, life sciences facilities and advanced manufacturing environments depend on precise environmental control, operational continuity and the ability to respond quickly as demand changes. Kaishi Zhang, VP, Products, Global Building Automation Systems & Controls, Johnson Controls feels that a building system disruption in these environments can affect productivity, research, compliance obligations and the availability of critical services. In an exclusive conversation Zhang tells Rajneesh De, Group Editor, APAC Media & CXO Media how these trends shaped five priorities for Metasys 16.0 – resilience, cybersecurity, energy intelligence, scalability and open integration.
Metasys 16.0 aligns with IEC 62443-4-2 Security Level 2. Could you walk us through what this certification means in practice for customers, and how the “Fast Track” upgrade process helps them stay ahead of emerging cyber threats?
Customers increasingly expect building automation systems to be secure, connected and easier to maintain as they become more integrated with enterprise operations. AI is helping organizations identify and respond to cyber risks more quickly, while cybercriminals are also using it to automate tasks and identify vulnerabilities faster. This makes it increasingly important to keep operational technology systems current, supported and protected.
IEC 62443-4-2 Security Level 2 (SL2) is an internationally recognized component-level cybersecurity standard for industrial automation and control systems. Independent third-party certification helps validate that Metasys system meets rigorous cybersecurity requirements designed to support secure, resilient facility operations.
Metasys Fast Track Upgrade automates 28 pre and post upgrade validation checks and produces a readiness report in minutes, reducing upgrade time by up to 40%. And because customers’ own IT teams can run it, they can adopt the latest protections and operational enhancements sooner, with less disruption. Ultimately, cyber resilience depends on people, processes, and technology working together. Our goal is to make it easier for customers to keep their systems current, supported and appropriately configured as technology and risks continue to evolve.
Industries like AI, biotechnology, and advanced manufacturing are scaling rapidly and putting new demands on building performance. How have these trends shaped the priorities for the development of Metasys 16.0?
At Johnson Controls, we see building performance becoming increasingly important to how businesses operate, scale and manage risk. Data centers, life sciences facilities and advanced manufacturing environments depend on precise environmental control, operational continuity and the ability to respond quickly as demand changes. A building system disruption in these environments can affect productivity, research, compliance obligations and the availability of critical services.
More fundamentally, building automation is evolving beyond traditional rule-based control. Systems are increasingly using data, analytics and automation to improve performance in real time.
These trends shaped five priorities for Metasys 16.0: The first is resilience, with capabilities designed to help maintain visibility and control during planned maintenance or an unexpected server interruption. The second is cybersecurity, reflecting the need to manage building systems as part of the wider connected enterprise.
The third is energy intelligence, helping customers understand consumption, identify opportunities for improvement and support reporting requirements. The fourth is scalability and deployment efficiency, enabling increasingly complex facilities to bring systems online and expand them more efficiently.
The fifth is open integration, enabling customers to integrate existing and future building and operational technologies driving greater operational efficiency.
Metasys 16.0 brings these capabilities together in a single building automation platform. It is designed to help customers maintain operations, manage risk, improve efficiency and adapt their building infrastructure as operational requirements evolve.
Built-in redundancy across multiple servers is a headline feature. What kinds of failure scenarios does this address, and how does it compare to how customers previously had to solve for redundancy?
In mission-critical environments, even a brief loss of visibility or control can have significant operational consequences. Native redundancy is designed to address everyday risks such as maintenance activities, hardware failures and network disruptions. Multiple servers maintain synchronized information, allowing another server to assume the relevant role if the primary server becomes unavailable.
Historically, this level of resilience often required specialized hardware, third-party software or complex virtualization strategies. By integrating redundancy directly into the platform, Metasys simplifies deployment while reducing cost and engineering effort.
For customers running mission-critical facilities, the ultimate benefit is continuity. Built in redundancy is helping organizations maintain operations and avoid costly disruptions when maintenance events or unexpected failures occur.
Metasys 16.0 now supports up to 1,300 IP devices, a 30% increase. What types of customers or facilities were hitting the limits of previous versions, and how does this change unlock new use cases for them?
Demand is growing rapidly among large campuses, multi-site enterprises and data centers, where device counts and system complexity continue to increase. Metasys 16.0 raises direct IP device support from 1,000 to 1,300 and object capacity from 50,000 to 65,000 per server, already up to 60% more than comparable systems.
What that really unlocks is the ability for customers to grow without adding unnecessary complexity, infrastructure costs or operational burden. By flattening the architecture and connecting more IP devices directly under a single server, customers consolidate what previously demanded additional infrastructure, cutting costs by up to 60%, with lower upfront investment and simpler long-term maintenance. For organizations scaling across campuses or global portfolios, this supports growth within a single, more streamlined system architecture.
With dashboards built for the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and other emerging standards, how is Johnson Controls thinking about the evolving global regulatory landscape, and how do you believe it will inform future innovations and product development?
Roughly 40% of the world’s carbon emissions come from advanced manufacturing operations and buildings. Building owners and operators today are focused on improving efficiency, controlling costs, strengthening resilience and meeting growing sustainability expectations. At the same time, regulatory requirements continue to evolve across regions, enhancing the need to better understand and manage building performance.
Europe’s recast Energy Performance of Buildings Directive is pushing toward a zero-emission building stock by 2050 and introduces indoor environmental quality standards for the first time. In the United States, requirements continue to expand through measures such as New York’s Local Law 97.
Across APAC, frameworks such as Singapore’s Green Mark and national energy codes are also advancing quickly. The direction is clear: building automation is becoming a design and architecture priority, not just a compliance requirement because it directly affects operating costs, resilience, growth capacity and long-term competitiveness.
While regulations often create urgency, our customers are increasingly investing in building intelligence because it improves performance, lowers costs, strengthens resilience and creates long-term business value. Our approach is to help customers make better use of their building data.
Metasys 16.0 brings energy information, reporting and indoor air quality monitoring together within the building automation platform. The Energy Management Suite provides an EPBD-ready dashboard with building energy performance insights, automated reporting and indoor air quality monitoring based on validated building data.
Looking ahead, we expect building automation systems to play a greater role in helping customers optimize energy performance, streamline reporting and respond to evolving standards, while keeping people appropriately involved in operational decision-making. This also means separating software upgrades from hardware replacement, so buildings can stay current without costly rip-and-replace. At Johnson Controls, our role is to provide the information and tools customers need, and help them turn building data into better operational, energy and sustainability outcomes.
How does Metasys 16.0 differentiate Johnson Controls from providers who are also adding cybersecurity and AI-driven features to their platforms?
Differentiation does not come down to any one feature. Many vendors are investing in cybersecurity, analytics and AI-driven capabilities. The difference is how these capabilities come together to solve customer problems.
Metasys combines resilience, cybersecurity, energy intelligence, interoperability and lifecycle support within a single platform. It supports the full BACnet family, including BACnet/SC, as well as Modbus, KNX, OPC UA and MQTT, together with open APIs. Visual integration tools, including Node-RED, support real-time data sharing and can help deploy integrations up to 80% faster while reducing associated deployment costs by 60% to 70%.
Redundancy, SL2 certified security, the Cyber Health Dashboard, fault detection and triage, and energy intelligence are engineered into one platform, not stitched together from add-ons or dependent on third-party software. Another differentiator is the ability to deliver and support the platform on a global scale.
Metasys has been continuously innovating since 1990 and is running in tens of thousands of installations worldwide. The system is backed by a global 50,000-person field workforce. The combination of open architecture, building intelligence, operational resilience and long-term lifecycle support helps customers adapt as their operational needs evolve.
Is there one industry where you expect Metasys 16.0 to have the most immediate or dramatic impact, and why?
What is really happening is the emergence of a class of mission-critical environments where failure is not an option, and that class is expanding. Data centers, for example, operate around the clock with no tolerance for downtime, where cooling and power must be managed as one system. Cybersecurity is a board level concern, and they are being built at extraordinary speed and density.
Every priority we engineered into Metasys 16.0 maps directly to that reality: native redundancy for uptime, SL2 certified cybersecurity, the scalability to handle thousands of points, energy intelligence for PUE and sustainability reporting, and Fast Track upgrades to match aggressive build schedules.
The same capabilities are also important in healthcare and life sciences facilities, where environmental control, operational continuity and regulatory compliance support the safety of patients and staff. What ties these together is a bigger idea I would leave your readers with. In environments where failure is not an option, the building automation system becomes a mission-critical platform supporting safety, compliance, and operational continuity.
This elevation, from background utility to mission-critical platform, is the real shift underway in our industry, and it is where Metasys 16.0 delivers its most immediate and dramatic value.
